Today, Sofija Miljković has contributed a variety of traditional Serbian customs, including creating her very own memes.
Saint Sava
Where: Serbia and Republic of Serbs
When: 27th January
Summary: Saint Sava is venerated by the Eastern Orthodox Church on January 27th. He is the patron saint and national hero of the Serbian people. He was born as Rastko Nemanjić, the youngest son of the great prefect Stefan Nemanja. He preached that all children should be educated, and advocated for basic hygiene at that time (it was the 18th century) etc.
January 27 is marked as the day of all schools in Serbia. One of the assignments every school pupil has to go through is drawing his face in art class. His face became a meme because there are a lot of portraits of him, and of course some of them are very ugly-looking ones.
The explanation of the ‘Winter in Belgrade’ meme is that the air pollution is very bad in Belgrade, and in other towns in Serbia, especially in the winter when people burn wood for heat.
This is a meme I created of Rico dancing with a traditional Serbian hat – Šajkača: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ajka%C4%8Da
Summary: Šajkača is worn by men on special occasions.
For example:
- Weddings
- When performing traditional Serbian folk dances
- On “Badnje” evening (similar to Christmas Eve for Catholics; but “Badnji” day and “Badnje” evening is on 6th of January, and Christmas is on 7th of January). All people from the town gather on the main square to burn their “Badnjak”. “Badnjak” is a type of tree people bring inside their homes before Christmas Eve. Some traditional men wear their “Šajkača” to the gathering.
References:
Also, Happy Birthday to Dr. Yoshio Nishina! (contributed by 🇯🇵 Naoyuki Ota)
Yoshio Nishina was a researcher in the field of atomic and particle physics and was involved in cosmic ray and accelerator research. His work, Klein-Nishina’s formula for calculating Compton scattering cross sections is well known.